No C:\\ in C1 v4 folder browser (and other brokeness of v4)
Like all the rest of you, I've just downloaded the v4 release and well, I'm as unimpressed with it as I was with beta2. Aside from the things we've all seen in beta2, there are apparently new bugs.
For example -
Looking at the folders browser in the Library, I have, top to bottom:
etc., etc., more drive mappings (which are legit). However, there's no C: drive shown at all. How do I now get to the directories on the C: drive?? I've not even looked at any raw files in this version, since I can't get to them! And why does C1 even honor the rather infantile Desktop/My Documents paradigm at all? Why does it show documents folders for *other* accounts? Why doesn't it simply have a standard Windows file browser and lets us view apples as apples (no pun intended). We're all adults and can deal with it.
When I go to the "Exposure" pane, the Curve window goes off the bottom of the screen (I'm still at 1024x768 on a 17" monitor at present). I can't even see what's below the graph itself, which is cut in half by the Windows Taskbar. Makes me wonder what I'm missing elsewhere (although I've seen a bit here and there in 3.77 go off the screen as well). I guess that's why they upped the sys requirements to include "color monitor with 1280 x 800, 24 bit resolution". Why not just design a decent (i.e, native) UI instead?
Why are the Preferences so thin? Why can't we change that awful dark grey color of the interface? I understand the value of a neutral color, but that's something that should be set *by the user*, *through the OS* (and simply honored by the app), not hardwired to some funky default in the app itself.
Why is the Help file a PDF instead of a real (context-sensitve) help system?
And so on...
I have to say - I came across 3.77 LE totally by accident. I bought a SANdisk CF card and didn't even realize it had the free C1 LE offer. Once I got it installed and took a bit of time to learn it, I grew to really like it (and still do). I supposedly have a free upgrade to v4, but if this is what it's like, NO THANKS. Somehow I just knew we were in for trouble when I saw the .NyET requirement...
Just as well, I guess - There's zero explanation of how to upgrade, I've not been given a v4 key and when I (through the app) retrieve my profile and try to proceed, it just hangs the whole program with a non-closable dialog box. I then have to kill it off using Task Manager.
Unless something seriously changes, I'll stick with 3.7x until something better comes along (evidently from somewhere other than PO). Maybe 3.7.8 will be out someday as a bisquit until then.
For example -
Looking at the folders browser in the Library, I have, top to bottom:
Desktop
my PC name
Control Panel
my account's documents
other accounts documents
Documents
3.5" floppy
D:
E:
etc., etc., more drive mappings (which are legit). However, there's no C: drive shown at all. How do I now get to the directories on the C: drive?? I've not even looked at any raw files in this version, since I can't get to them! And why does C1 even honor the rather infantile Desktop/My Documents paradigm at all? Why does it show documents folders for *other* accounts? Why doesn't it simply have a standard Windows file browser and lets us view apples as apples (no pun intended). We're all adults and can deal with it.
When I go to the "Exposure" pane, the Curve window goes off the bottom of the screen (I'm still at 1024x768 on a 17" monitor at present). I can't even see what's below the graph itself, which is cut in half by the Windows Taskbar. Makes me wonder what I'm missing elsewhere (although I've seen a bit here and there in 3.77 go off the screen as well). I guess that's why they upped the sys requirements to include "color monitor with 1280 x 800, 24 bit resolution". Why not just design a decent (i.e, native) UI instead?
Why are the Preferences so thin? Why can't we change that awful dark grey color of the interface? I understand the value of a neutral color, but that's something that should be set *by the user*, *through the OS* (and simply honored by the app), not hardwired to some funky default in the app itself.
Why is the Help file a PDF instead of a real (context-sensitve) help system?
And so on...
I have to say - I came across 3.77 LE totally by accident. I bought a SANdisk CF card and didn't even realize it had the free C1 LE offer. Once I got it installed and took a bit of time to learn it, I grew to really like it (and still do). I supposedly have a free upgrade to v4, but if this is what it's like, NO THANKS. Somehow I just knew we were in for trouble when I saw the .NyET requirement...
Just as well, I guess - There's zero explanation of how to upgrade, I've not been given a v4 key and when I (through the app) retrieve my profile and try to proceed, it just hangs the whole program with a non-closable dialog box. I then have to kill it off using Task Manager.
Unless something seriously changes, I'll stick with 3.7x until something better comes along (evidently from somewhere other than PO). Maybe 3.7.8 will be out someday as a bisquit until then.
0
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Well, you can easily open files anywhere on your computer....
See the triangle in the directory preceeding your computer name?
Click on it.....
Nice, huh?0 -
> there's no C: drive shown at all. How do I now get to the directories on the C: drive??
Drive C: does not appear when you expand "My Computer" (or whatever name appears below "Desktop") by clicking the triangle to its left?
> When I go to the "Exposure" pane, the Curve window goes off the bottom of the screen (I'm still at 1024x768 on a 17" monitor at present).
Same problem here -- same resolution settings on a 19" monitor. The Curves panel problem is a "known issue," per the release notes. Why a major UI element's failure to display fully (in some circumstances) was not considered a ship-stopper, I don't know. I think they could have done something about this, some temporary fix. Sadly, they didn't.
> Why not just design a decent (i.e, native) UI instead?
From where I sit that's a perfectly reasonable question. And I agree with you about the preferences dialog's "thin" content. I found that kind of shocking, considering the extensive preferences settings available in other applications of this type.
> Why is the Help file a PDF instead of a real (context-sensitve) help system?
I can speak from experience here: in companies with an "engineering-heavy" mindset, documentation often takes a back seat. I could live with the documentation's not being context-sensitive. But -- not even a proper table-of-contents panel ("bookmarks") within the PDF file? That is not a good way to do PDF-based help. It isn't as if creating the bookmarks were mind-twistingly difficult. You set up your doc-authoring and PDF-building processes right the first time, and you're home free afterward -- each time you rebuild the online help. You're right about the lack of easily "discoverable" info on upgrading. I find that baffling. But again, it's the kind of thing that happens with documentation (and web sites) in an "engineering-heavy" work environment, especially one where there is nobody acting as a kind of end-user ombudsman. The end-user becomes a conveniently malleable hypothetical person whose satisfaction can always be predicted: whatever we give them, will satisfy them (or satisfy them enough to suit our purposes)...a closed system.
Creating non-mediocre documentation is expensive. But when the app is complex, spending real-world money on good documentation can produce higher customer satisfaction and noticeably lower support costs. When the "ambient" mind-set is not end-user-oriented, this point nearly always falls on deaf ears. The costs typically drive the documentation project out of the company's mind. I've seen it happen often.
Even on P.O.'s web site, finding clear information about how to upgrade is difficult. From message traffic here I take it a number of users have felt that same pain. It's an unnecessarily convoluted system and one that -- here I'm just taking a wild guess -- might be sometimes compromised by problems with P.O.'s servers or databases.
I had only slight trouble upgrading 3.7 to 4. If it had proven more difficult I would simply have kissed the program goodbye.
Clearly P.O. has put a lot of time and money into the raw conversions. I never liked v.3.7 but I'm impressed by v.4's conversions, including its rendering of fine image detail -- best I've seen so far. So the program can produce superb results, but sadly, the end-user "stuff" seems to have taken a seat a bit too far in back. One message thread here is entitled "How can we effect change" (in v4?) Good question. It's hard to know what attention P.O. pays to comments posted in the forum. Bare-bones 'how do I' questions are sometimes answered, but that's about it...0 -
I for one think is strange they decided on a system requirement to have a minimum vertical resolution of 800 instead of 768. That extra 32 lines on the screen really excludes a lot of people. I haven't tried the final release, but in the betas, using my laptop (1280x800, the minimum res in the C1v4 system requirements), the curve tool was still chopped off significantly, meaning that even their system requirement was not sufficient to use all the product. 0
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